Now, get property tax bills by registered mail

From November 1, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will send property tax bills and notice of demand to 2.75 lakh housing societies through post-offices and that, too, by registered post. 

Joint Municipal Commissioner Satish Bhide said that the civic body had tied up with post offices and would send all the related data to post offices.

He said, “We will pay annually Rs25 lakh to the postal department. We will be relieved of the headache of sending bills to individual property owners. But the bill can be finally paid only in BMC offices. Instead of the usual practice of sending two bills, there will only one bill henceforth which will carry two dates corresponding to six-month period. The main aim is save manpower and using them for recovery purpose.”

“The property tax bill and notice of demand are sent by inspector-level officer. There are 1,223 inspectors in Accessory and Collector department. Most of the inspectors were doing the job,” said Accessory and Collector PB Khandare.

A senior officer from the collector department said that in the earlier system, the BMC did not receive the full penalty amount. The collection inspector being the final authority, many inspectors used to favour societies. So now there are no middle-men involved,” he added.

Another official said the BMC used to spend  Rs3 crore for the entire exercise.